Categories: Education

Chasing a Lamborghini

&NewLine;<p><img class&equals;" alignright size-full wp-image-260" style&equals;"margin&colon; 5px&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;schoolnewsnz&period;fastrackdev&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2012&sol;02&sol;SN&lowbar;16&lowbar;-&lowbar;Lamborghini&period;jpg" alt&equals;"SN 16 - Lamborghini" width&equals;"200" height&equals;"150" &sol;>Speaking on the topic of Innovation – Lamborghini or lemon&quest; – Associate professor Graham Atkin focused on connecting innovation to the two other conference themes&colon; education and collaboration&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p> <&excl;--more--> <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Atkin told his audience the qualities most needed in all teachers is&colon; &&num;8220&semi;a sense of open mindedness&comma; a willingness to experiment&comma; a willingness to try out new ideas&comma; a willingness to be flexible and adaptable&period; We need people to be innovating in a high performance way&period; Innovation is expensive&comma; often in terms of dollars&comma; but also in terms of teacher time&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He wanted teachers to learn to distinguish &&num;8220&semi;Lamborghini innovation from the lemon innovation&&num;8221&semi; and vest their time and energy in the former&period; Examples of great failures&comma; or lemons&comma; were the Titanic&comma; the airship&comma; Concorde and the home robot&period; In education&comma; there had also been lemons&period; Open classrooms and learning centres had not particularly taken off&period; It was a similar story with interactive whiteboards&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He saw teachers as being obligated to provide three key things&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>1&rpar; Greater learning<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>2&rpar; Greater interest<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>3&rpar; Greater confidence<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We will not be successful as teachers unless we achieve the intersection of those things&period; It isn&&num;8217&semi;t good enough to cause greater achievement on its own&period; If we&&num;8217&semi;re creating achievement without creating interest – without creating a sense that children want to take these ideas further and do something else with them – to my reading&comma; we have failed&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Teachers also failed if they did not create a greater sense of confidence&period; &&num;8220&semi;It is the intersection between these things that makes the difference – the ability to have more confident&comma; interested and successful learners&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s not one thing or the other&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s the intersection of all three&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There were also risks with innovation&comma; he said&period; Often innovation itself created interest&comma; but that interest had to flow through into greater achievement and a greater sense of confidence&period; It was easy to waste students&&num;8217&semi; time through misaligned effort by having them do busy things which were not aligned to important outcomes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8216&semi;Mirage&&num;8217&semi; innovation created more interest at the expense of alignment and success&period; Real innovation was innovation that generated all three<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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